Health App

Apple plans to add sleep tracking capabilities to the Apple Watch. Despite its many health monitoring features, including a built-in ECG function, the Apple Watch requires daily charging. With most users charging the wearable overnight, this prevents the device from being worn to analyze sleep patterns. Competing wearables such as Fitbit, Garmin and Withings boast multi-day battery life, allowing these devices to be worn overnight.

Thanks to the Apple Watch Heart Rate app, watch owners can keep track of their resting and active heart rates throughout the day. In some instances, users have become aware of heart problems and sought medical attention, all because of the heart rate sensors on their wrist. Apple has included a built-in function to warn those wearing an Apple Watch of an unusually high heart rate, however this function is switched off by default.

Apple has seeded iOS 8.2 beta 3 a little over a week after releasing the second beta to developers. The third beta also arrives after Apple released iOS 8.1.2 to the public last week to fix a ringtone bug. While iOS 8.2 is mostly geared towards supporting Apple's WatchKit and soon to be released smartwatch, it will also reintroduce "support for blood glucose tracking through the iOS 8 Health app," according to 9to5Mac. The glucose tracking feature was disabled after some UK and Australian users reported issues while trying to manually enter the mmol/L (millimoles per liter) value used to measure blood glucose levels in some countries. The update also introduces descriptions of data points found in the Health app such as BAC, BMI and so on.

It has been a tough start for iOS 8 and the Health app. Apple had to release iOS 8.0.1 in September to fix a bug that was delaying developers from releasing HealthKit-enabled apps to the App Store. However, iOS 8.0.1 contained its own bug that caused some iPhone owners issues with their cellular data and Touch ID, prompting Apple to quickly release iOS 8.0.2 one day later.

It has been a bumpy start for Apple's Health app, but more developers are getting on board now that all the kinks have been ironed out. For example, Nike has finally updated one of its iOS apps with Health app integration. On Tuesday, the footwear company rolled out version 4.6 of its Nike + Running app with Health app support and other new features.

The app now includes a new quick start feature and the ability to swipe in any direction to access your music or running stats. The app has also been updated with elevation tracking for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and it is now capable of delivering more accurate and detailed running information by tapping into your Health app data. You can view the entire changelog below.

There is a potentially life saving feature in iOS 8's new Health app - the emergency Medical ID. If you are ever in an accident, and let's hope you never are, that leaves you unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate, the Medical ID could prove invaluable to emergency medical workers. So, to err on the side of caution you should set yours up. It takes only a few moments, here's how to do it:

1. Open your Health app and tap on Medical ID in the bottom right corner.